Massa stays top at opening Silverstone test

Felipe Massa topped the times on the first day of in-season testing at Silverstone, with his time from the morning remaining at the top of the timesheets at the end of the day.

Massa completed 42 laps in total but finished his session 40 minutes before the end of the day despite the car running without any problems. Daniel Ricciardo set the second fastest time in the final few minutes of the session, getting within 0.006s of Massa's effort on his 68th lap of 71. Nico Rosberg slipped to third fastest as a result but continued to pound round the circuit in his Mercedes in the afternoon, completing a total of 89 laps.

Adrian Sutil improved in the final 30 minutes of the session to go fourth fastest and set a time within 0.5s of Massa's best effort. Jules Bianchi completed more laps than anybody else as Marussia worked with Pirelli on testing tyre developments for 2015 and set the fifth fastest time. However, he had to finish his day early when he stopped on track with a small fire, which resulted in a prolonged red flag period midway through the afternoon.

McLaren reserve driver Stoffel Vandoorne was seventh fastest after 71 laps on his second outing in the MP4-29. Sergio Perez was seventh fastest in the Force India ahead of Jean-Eric Vergne, who stopped three times on track causing red flags. By the end of the day he had completed just 28 laps in the Toro Rosso with a best time of 1:36.688, another concern for the team with its recent string of reliability issues.

Pastor Maldonado completed 97 laps, a mileage count only bettered by Bianchi, but still finished down in ninth on the timing screens. Pedro de la Rosa was testing tyres for Pirelli in the Ferrari and finished the day with 49 laps after a water leak brought his session to an early end. It was de la Rosa's first outing in the Ferrari F14 T and he opted to run number 28 on his car.

Last on the list was Formula 3.5 driver Will Stevens, who more than doubled his running from the morning session with 94 laps but could not jump off the foot of the timesheets for Caterham.